Dirk Eitzen

Dirk Eitzen is an award-winning documentary producer and an assistant professor of film Studies at Franklin & Marshall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His scholarly work has appeared in Velvet Light Trap, Iris, Post Script, and elsewhere, and he has recently completed a Ph.D. dissertation, at the University of Iowa, on the rhetoric and reception of…Show morehistorical documentaries. Show less

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The Film

Four and a half million tourists visit Lancaster County, Pennsylvania each year. The cash they spend on Amish-made products is a boon to Amish families who cannot make ends meet by farming alone. At the same time, tourist dollars and constant contact with outsiders threaten to erode the traditional values at the foundation of the Amish way of life. This engaging and witty documentary examines the impact the tourism industry and the loss of farmland are having on the Amish community.